Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic is confident Croatian people recognise his government's achievements, which he described as "gigantic" compared to the situation in 2016 when his centre-right HDZ party came to power, noting in a message to voters that with the current government, "they know what they are in for."

Asked by reporters, during a tour of the Ucka tunnel construction site in Istria, if he was afraid of the competition in the coming elections, considering that Sandra Bencic of the green-left Mozemo! and Pedja Grbin of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) have announced their candidacies for the post of prime minister, Plenkovic said that there would be more candidates for his position, adding, “Look at the ratings, projects, results…”

“With our achievements, Croatian citizens, voters, know what they are in for,” he said.

He stressed that during his government’s term, the minimum wage had been increased (by 70 percent), as had the average median wage (by close to 50 percent), that the average pension amounted to more than 47 percent of the average wage, and that employment had grown (the ratio of employed to unemployed persons is 16:1, as against 4:1 ten years ago).

Speaking of public finance management, he recalled that in 2016 the country was two grades below the investment credit rating, adding that efforts were being made to downplay S&P’s having given Croatia the highest rating ever, but that the government would keep pointing to that achievement as long as necessary.

He recalled that Croatia had been in the excessive budget deficit procedure and now “has no deficit owing to a responsible public finance management”, as well as that it had exited the excessive macroeconomic imbalance procedure and entered the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II).

“Unlike the previous governments that did nothing in terms of Schengen or euro area entry, we made both strategies, entered the euro area, met more than 280 criteria for accession to the Schengen area,” he said.

Plenkovic added that ten days after the last parliamentary election his government “brought Croatia €25 billion in grants or very favorable loans for development in this decade.”

“Those are gigantic achievements compared to what we found in 2016. That is why our confidence in the wisdom of Croatian voters is very strong. People can see how things used to be and how they are now,” he said.